ACROSS THE STARS
Chapter Eleven
Rosé leaned forward in her seat,
staring out the window of the private compartment in the ground transport that was
carrying them from Telsni to the Nem village of Az, the closest settlement to
the Bukaters’ wilderness estate.
They had spent the night at the
city house before boarding the transport just after sunrise. It was a ten-hour
journey from Telsni to Az, the route taking them around the Orpac mountains
with their famous twenty-nine kilometer high peak.
Over the centuries since Telsni
had been founded, many attempts had been made to build roads and rail lines
over the mountains and to tunnel through them, but all had eventually met with
failure. Even the lower peaks were too high for ease of construction or travel,
the weather too harsh and swift-changing, and the few segments of road that
remained were largely used by the mountain wildlife and the residents of the
small, isolated villages that dotted the thickly forested lower mountain
valleys. A few hardy people lived as much as five kilometers up the mountain
peaks, but they were few and far between, and the appearance of any of them in
the lowland cities and villages attracted crowds, due to the peak dwellers’
unusually hairy and very barrel-chested forms.
Tunneling through the mountains
to provide roads and rail lines had proven even less successful. The interior
of the mountains was filled with pockets of dense gas, often explosive, and
with underground lakes and rivers, some of them hot enough to kill a person in
a matter of minutes. Some of the peaks were volcanic, as well, and the last
attempt to tunnel through the mountains, which had taken place during the war,
had killed thousands of tunnelers on both sides of the conflict when they had
attempted to catch each other by surprise and had inadvertently tunneled into a
heretofore stable pocket of molten rock.
Cleon Bukater had been
instrumental in getting a law passed that banned any attempts at tunneling or
building roads through the Orpac range. The number of people who had died
building the roads and tunnels numbered in the thousands over the centuries,
and hundreds had died trying to use the roads that had been built. Since then,
all ground transports had gone around the mountains, and only those traveling
on foot, with animals, or by air had gone into them. Most of those who did go
into the Orpacs did not go far—only to the villages in the low valleys, or
occasionally higher to hunt or prospect. Even so, some who ventured far into
the mountains vanished, never to be found.
The transport slowed as it
approached Az, its sensors scanning the tracks ahead for any obstacles as it
moved toward the station. The door to the compartment opened as Maira slipped
back inside, returning from one her many trips around the transport to check
for threats.
Rosé had been worried at first
when Maira had insisted upon leaving the compartment every half hour, but after
the third time, when she had seen the smirk on Jack’s face, she had asked him
if the threat was really that great. He had told her that they had checked the
transport thoroughly before the Bukaters had come aboard, and then checked
again as it was leaving Telsni. Maira’s insistence upon frequently checking for
threats had more to do with her lack of an important Jedi trait—patience—than
any actual threat.
The transport pulled into the Az
station, the wheels screeching as it came to a halt. Ruth gave Rosé a severe look
as she leaped to her feet, eager to be out of the compartment and on her way
outside. Rosé sat down again, a bit sheepishly, while Jack and Maira cracked
open the compartment door and watched as the few other passengers leaving the
transport at Az gathered their belongings and disembarked. When the hallway was
clear, they gestured to the Bukaters to follow them.
Ruth and Rosé followed the Jedi,
carrying their luggage with the help of a porter droid. When they disembarked
from the transport, Ruth looked around, her lips pursing in displeasure when
she saw that the transportation she had arranged for the last leg of the
journey was not yet there to meet them.
Maira stood beside Ruth, scanning
the road running through the village and into the forest. Glancing at a
chronometer on a nearby wall, she said, "We are about twenty minutes
early, Mistress DeWitt-Bukater. If the transportation you arranged does not
arrive by the time you stated, I will try to find out why."
As it turned out, it wasn’t
necessary for Maira to search for the missing transportation. Ten minutes
later, a square cart pulled by six three-horned, four-legged creatures as tall
as a man pulled up to the station. The driver got down from the cart, firmly
tying off the lead animals. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw that his
passengers were already there.
"Mistress
DeWitt-Bukater," he started hesitantly. "Sorry I’m a bit late…"
"You aren’t late at
all," Rosé interjected. "The transport was early…for a change."
He looked relieved…Ruth DeWitt-Bukater
hated being kept waiting and wouldn’t hesitate to let him know that she was
unhappy with him.
He got another surprise when
Maira and Jack followed the Bukaters to the cart. "Mistress
DeWitt-Bukater?" he asked, glancing at the two Jedi, who were still
disguised as migrants. "Are they accompanying you?"
"Yes, Boult, they are. This
is Maira Jennings and her…son, Jack. They are going to be working at the
Bukater estate."
Maira glanced at Jack, silently
warning him not to say anything about being introduced as a servant. It was
better if no one knew who they were.
He nodded, watching as Boult
helped Ruth and Rosé into the cart. When he turned to help Maira into the cart,
her hood fell back, revealing her face for a moment before she pulled it back
up. Boult’s eyes lit with recognition.
"Hey, aren’t you—"
Maira shook her head quickly.
"No…no, I’m not." She waved a hand. "I’ve never been here
before."
Boult nodded, agreeing.
"You’ve never been here before." He offered a hand to help her into
the cart.
When Jack had scrambled into the
cart beside his master, he called to her through their bond.
/Master?/
/Yes, Jack?/
/Did he actually know who you
were?/
/I think he did, yes/
/How did he recognize you?/
/I’ve been to Arcadia before, Padawan.
He may have seen me when I was here with Lati. Or perhaps he saw me on the
holo, or read about me in a flimsiplast/
/Do you think he’ll report
that we’re here?/
/I don’t know, Jack. For now,
I’ve convinced him that I’ve never been here before/
/What will we do if it isn’t
safe here?/
/If it isn’t safe here, and we
can’t keep them safe, we’ll have to take them somewhere no one would expect to
find them. For their sake, I hope we don’t have to. The Bukaters have been
through enough already/
Jack nodded, agreeing, and braced
himself as the cart started off with a jerk. In thirteen hours—half of an
Arcadian day—they would be at the Bukater estate.